Much like this week’s Captain America #1, this issue seems to float. We’re not quite sure when this takes place in relation to the main book, which is currently undergoing a Fear Itself crossover.

It also seems like events have been pushed forward to create the atmosphere that this issue hinges on. I didn’t think things were so dire for Mutants worldwide and that one incident would cause all of the nations of the world to release their sentinels. Yes, Kade Kilgore and the new Hellfire Club, have been manipulating events behind the scenes, but it still comes across as forced. It comes across as a major overreaction by the world.

Wouldn’t having a big force bubble surround parts of San Francisco, as well as Magneto living with the rest of the mutants, and the Atlanteans taking up residence beneath Utopia, wouldn’t all of those events have also prompted such a reaction?

This is a story that needed more build up to make it believable.

That’s not to say it’s a bad story. Jason Aaron does a good job with what he had to work with. There’s alot of character moments, but there are also alot of moments forced into the story to make it function. Wolverine’s interest in Idie, well understandable based on his interactions with others in the past (Kitty, Jubilee, X-23), doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel natural. Well the dialogue is excellant, the idea is forced. The only one of the Lights that Logan has so far shown interest in has been Teon. To all of a sudden show interest in Idie doesn’t fit.

And that the world just happens to have a ton of Sentinals laying around ready to go, and someone just happened to bring some to the arms conference, seems like an overreaction. There are less then 200 mutants in the world and one incident causes the world to react stronger then they did when there were millions of mutants?

And all the mutants are in one place, pretty much. How are they a greater threat now then ever before? Aaron tries to cover that with Cyclops saying that the mutants now being organized makes them a bigger threat, but it’s hard to believe.

The problem with teasers is that we know some of the results before they happen. We already knew that Schism was going to lead to a fall-out between Wolverine and Cyclops and that there would be two books as a result. Because of this, the issue comes across as overly blunt with the story putting Cyclops into the leader role and Logan the follower. It basically hammers us into thinking “Cyclops is the leader and Wolverine supports him wholeheartedly” over and over again.

If we didn’t know what the result of Schism would be, the idea wouldn’t have been so blunt. It would have come across the way Aaron probably intended it, just reinforcing the standing between the two characters. But because we know the result of the event, it doesn’t have the same weight.

Pacheco’s art is nice, like always, but in a book with three levels of editorship someone should have paid attention to how he drews some of the characters. Kenji does not look like Kenji.

At least Pacheco is one of the few that actually tries to draw Idie at her true age, 14, even though she’s way too tall. He at least makes the attempt, which is different from alot of other artists that have drawn the lights.

X-Men: Schism #1 receives
3.5 out of 5

The situation which leads to the conflict doesn’t come naturally and feels forced, making the entire story not as strong as it could have been. This is one story that could have used more build-up.